We didn’t know but the moral codes were long since bought and sold

Cored and clanking tin, spinning wheels in the wind,

Blue veins of fear and greed.

In the aftermath of blood and smoke some children woke and joined their kin,

other kids in the streets who’d vowed to never sleep again

until the water ran clean.

They walked to a high hill and lit their eyes on fire.

We came to them tired and nearly broken.

We watched the dawn come.

The tin soldiers shrieked in the hot wind,

beneath the televised currents of sneer and lie, control delete,

some truth got in.

And the time of weapons into ploughshares was the dog star,

low on the horizon red with smoke.

And the fire grew.

By Risa Dickens.